


Catch a Falling Star

by kanonkita



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alien Biology, Continuity Mashup, Domesticity, M/M, Mechpreg, Mpreg, Or attempts thereof, Pheromones, Post-War, Shower Sex, Sleepy Sex, Slice of Life, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, adolescent rodimus, in every single universe, ratchet doesn't know why he has to be the one to deal with these two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2019-11-08 10:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17979878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanonkita/pseuds/kanonkita
Summary: Against all odds, Megatron's retired with his mate at his side, and there's nothing important left to do but each other. But you know what they say: if you want to make Primus laugh, tell him your plans.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> They're humanformers. They look human, but they're not. At all. Just roll with it. Also, this is what Starscream's "wings" look like if I'm talking about that: https://www.deviantart.com/kanonkita/art/Starscream-Bird-in-the-Sea-755033425
> 
> This is part of a series along with Failing and Flying and Midnight Run. I make reference to events in them, but you don't have to read either to enjoy this. There's a bit of angst at the beginning, but it'll mostly be a fluffy slice of life this time, I promise.

“I don't feel right,” Starscream announced.

Megatron turned out of his pillow to observe the smaller mech stretched out on the bed beside him in the pale morning light. His mate was frowning up at the ceiling, one hand massaging absently at the center of his chest. He was entirely naked—a welcome sight—as was Megatron. It was late summer by now, and far too warm to wear clothes to bed even if they'd wanted to.

“What do you mean, you don't feel right?” the ex-warlord asked, reaching out a hand to caress the smooth skin of the Seeker's abdomen. “You getting your cycles again?”

“No,” Starscream assured him, the hand on his chest moving down to take Megatron's and bringing it back up. “It's my spark that doesn't feel right. It's just... wrong. Does it feel wrong to you?”

The other mech scooted himself closer across the bed so that he could rest his ear against Starscream's chest while he studied his mate's presence in their bond. He felt the same as always, though perhaps a little tired. Megatron told him so before snaking his arms around the Seeker's narrow waist and pressing a kiss just above his spark chamber.

“It still definitely feels weird,” Starscream insisted, stroking the ex-warlord's hair.

“We can do something that feels better,” Megatron purred, sliding a hand out from under the other mech to venture toward his pelvis.

“Stop it!” the Seeker hissed at him, slapping at the offending hand. “I'm trying to tell you I don't feel good.”

Megatron huffed and scooted himself up so that he could prop himself on one elbow and lean over his mate. He wasn't disappointed by the refusal; he'd gotten a rather splendid round from the Seeker last night, after all. That was probably why the stubborn little fool was so tired now, come to think of it.

“If it's your spark again, we could try merging. That usually helps,” Megatron suggested.

Starscream glanced up at him, and seemed to be considering. “No, it's, like... tender,” he explained after a moment. “I think any direct contact might hurt.”

“Your sparkmate's spark can't hurt you,” the ex-warlord grunted at him.

“Okay, well, you always go and stick your spike in me while we're merging, and I'm always too caught up in the moment to tell you no, and I really don't want that right now. I hurt,” Starscream insisted, perfectly groomed eyebrows pulling into a resentful scowl.

“Fine,” Megatron sighed, flopping down on the bed beside him. “Just come here, then.”

He reached out and began the business of pulling Starscream toward him, despite the Seeker's protests that it was too hot and Megatron stank and whatever else he could think to object to about receiving physical affection. Megatron ignored it all and carefully tucked his mate up under his chin, cradling his head in one hand and wrapping the other arm around his back to keep the smaller frame tight against his. After a moment or two, Starscream began to relax against him, one slender arm reaching out to return his embrace.

“Feel any better?” Megatron asked him.

“I'd feel better if you  _ smelled _ better,” he grumbled, but didn't pull away.

 

* * *

 

Starscream continued complaining about feeling “weird” for a few days after that, and then stopped. Megatron didn't think much of it; his mate was always complaining about something or other. He did notice a few weeks later, though, when he woke in the early hours of the morning to find his bed empty and a certain amount of vague, secondhand distress twinging in his chest.

“Starscream?” he called, sitting up and trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.

There was no answer, but the bathroom light was on. Megatron heaved himself out of bed and stumbled toward it, sliding the unlatched door open the rest of the way to find his mate sprawled on the floor in front of the toilet, a towel bunched up beneath his head. The Seeker's face wasn't visible from Megatron's current vantage point, but he let out a pitiful moan when the door opened.

“You okay?” Megatron yawned, leaning against the doorframe.

“I threw up,” Starscream whimpered.

“I can smell that,” his mate informed him. The scent of tank solvents still hung oppressively in the bathroom air. “Do you have the flu?”

“I don't know,” the Seeker whined. “I just don't feel good.”

Megatron sighed and stepped into the room. He sank down beside the smaller mech and pressed a hand to his sweaty forehead. Starscream's face was pale and screwed up in pain, his arms wrapped tightly round his stomach, but he didn't feel feverish. If anything, he felt clammy. Megatron slid his hand down to touch one of the Seeker's arms and found it cold.

“Come back to bed,” he rumbled, starting to pull the other mech upright.

“Noooo,” Starscream moaned, his eyes still squeezed shut as he flopped about like a rag doll in his mate's grasp. “I feel sick!”

“Lying on the bathroom floor freezing isn't gonna do you any good,” Megatron pointed out. When it became clear that Starscream wasn't going to stand on his own, the larger mech slipped his arms under his body and maneuvered back out the door with the Seeker cradled against his chest. Starscream shivered when Megatron slid him back under the covers, and the ex-warlord took a moment to smooth his hair back before going to find a bucket.

 

* * *

 

Starscream threw up twice more that morning, but was up and about by the evening, tired and grumpy but otherwise fine. They decided it must have been a 24-hr bug and Megatron braced himself to come down with the same thing in the near future. Only, he never did. Instead, Starscream continued the same pattern of being violently ill all morning only to recover in the evening every couple days for the next few weeks. Even on the days he wasn't sick, he was moody and tired and refused to take more than the barest minimum of fuel.

“I think I'm gaining weight,” the Seeker announced one day, prodding at his stomach with an irritated expression as he turned back and forth in front of the mirror in their bedroom.

“You don't look like you're gaining weight,” Megatron informed him from his spot on the bed. If anything, he'd noticed his mate was  _ losing _ a little weight lately, doubtless on account of his frequent vomiting spells.

“Then what's this?” Starscream demanded, pulling his shirt up and waistband down to expose his midriff.

Megatron frowned at him. The Seeker's stomach, usually a flat surface of toned muscle, actually was slightly distended. However, since he had a sense of self-preservation and sex had already been growing less frequent in the last few weeks, the ex-warlord simply shrugged.

“You look fine to me,” he said.

Starscream huffed at him. “I  _ feel _ fat,” he muttered, rubbing at his lower abdomen and turning sideways to glare at his reflection. “Feels like there's a lob ball stuck in my guts.”

“Probably just indigestion,” Megatron assured him, getting off the bed and crossing the room to grab the Seeker's hips from behind. “You'll only make it worse by stressing about it.”

He tugged Starscream back against himself, wrapping his arms around the smaller mech's belly so that he couldn't poke at it anymore, and leaned down to kiss his cheek.

“I've had nothing but indigestion for almost a month now,” Starscream complained, squirming slightly in his grasp. “What if there's actually something wrong with me?”

“Then we'll find a doctor. You'll be just fine.” Megatron began to nibble at his mate's jaw, moving down to mouth along his neck. Starscream sighed and leaned back into him, one hand coming up to caress the back of the other mech's head, while Megatron in turn rubbed gentle circles lower and lower on his stomach.

“Just be gentle,” the Seeker instructed as he popped the button on his pants for the other mech.

“Whatever you want, love,” Megatron told him, sliding his wandering hand down toward the waistband of Starscream's underwear... and paused. He pressed curiously against his mate's lower abdomen and rubbed his hand back and forth over a hard lump he had never noticed there before. It wasn't unlike the way he could sometimes feel Starscream's inflamed gestation chamber during his cycles, but far more pronounced. He pushed a little harder on the mystery lump, and Starscream made a noise of discomfort.

“Sorry,” Megatron murmured, and he moved on to other bits of the Seeker's anatomy, telling himself that this was nothing. Doubtless, Starscream was coming up on a round of cycles, and he just happened to be a little more bloated than usual. It would explain a lot.

He had other things to focus on now, he reminded himself as he slipped his hand between his mate's legs, pushing the Seeker's aft back against his own crotch.

“Mm. That's kinda nice,” Starscream hummed, grinding against him as he gently worked his fingers between the folds of his valve.

“I can make it better,” Megatron breathed, brushing his lips along the Seeker's neck.

“We'll see about that.”

 

* * *

 

With the way their sex life had been going lately, Megatron had expected just to finger his mate and maybe get a hand job in return, so it was a pleasant surprise when he found himself instead kneeling on the bed with his spike buried hilt-deep in tight, silky, Starscream-y goodness not ten minutes later. The Seeker in turn was on his knees in front of him with his face buried in a pillow, but there was something a bit off about the arch of his back.

“You're tense,” Megatron observed, slowing his thrusts down a bit and bringing a hand up to rub along his mate's lower back.

“You're supposed to be fixing that,” Starscream panted, turning his face out of the pillow to glare back at him.

Megatron hummed and rolled his hips languidly to keep the stimulation slow and deep. It had been so many days since they'd done this by now that eager as he was to blow a load inside of Starscream, he was also content to savor the moment.

He pulled out almost all the way, and then sank himself back in at a teasing rate, feeling the Seeker's valve ripple and stretch around him. Starscream let out a beautifully thick moan, eyes fluttering shut as he tightened his grip on the sheets.

“Have I told you lately how handsome you look, drooling on a pillow with my rod stuffed up your poppet?” Megatron asked, face splitting into a grin as he pulled out again.

“Stuff me harder,” his mate whined, his hips shifting slightly in Megatron's grip.

“I thought you said to be gentle,” the ex-warlord reminded him.

“And now I'm asking you to pound me into the bed, so get a move on already, fragger!” the Seeker snarled, his eyes flying open once more, and really he did look so good in that position and his valve was so beautifully compliant that Megatron couldn't refuse.

He chuckled lightly and shoved his hips forward so hard that the smaller mech jerked several inches up the bed with a muffled cry of ecstasy.

“Yes! Yes, that! Oh,  _ Primus _ , Megs! Put--your--slagging--back--into--it!” Starscream started to hiss in a sharp staccato as Megatron continued to rut into him with as much force as he deemed safe. Granted, the Seeker had taken him full force many times in the past, but it always left him physically drained and far more sore than he ever let on. Megatron wasn't going to inflict that on him right now when he already seemed to be struggling. Besides, this was plenty good enough for him; he could already feel an overload building, and had to slow down to avoid going off too soon.

“What are you doing?” his mate demanded, pushing himself up onto his elbows so he could look back properly.

“Can't... gonna blow,” the older mech explained, somewhat breathlessly.

“Don't take too long. I also want to sleep at some point tonight,” Starscream sniffed, clearly trying to sound haughty, but failing on account of the way he bit into his lower lip and groaned with abandon a split-second later as Megatron slid his hands up to massage his wings. After a moment, when he'd regained his control, Megatron sped up again.

They went on in varying intervals of slow, steady rolls and desperate pistoning of hips for several minutes before Megatron started to notice that something wasn't right—he wasn't sliding in and out of Starscream's valve with anything like as much ease as he had been at the beginning. Of course, it was typical for the Seeker's own lubricants to start running a bit low if they went on for a while, but it usually took closer to 15 minutes than five. It seemed Starscream was feeling the change, too, because there was that particular crease between his eyebrows that he got when things were starting to hurt in the wrong way. Deciding it was time to wrap things up, Megatron picked up the pace.

“Ow,  _ ow!”  _ Starscream gasped, moving forward as if trying to escape him. “You're hurting me!”

“You were just fine a second ago,” Megatron tried to reason, stalling his movements, nonetheless.

“I know. I just... It hurts, okay?”

“Do you want me to stop?” the older mech verified, trying to rub some comfort into his mate's hips.

“Just get some lube, or something,” Starscream suggested.

“We're out of it,” Megatron told him. “They didn't have any the last time I was in town.”

“Then go slower.”

“Neither of us is going to get anywhere if I do that.”

The Seeker made a whining noise, his legs shaking in want of an overload it didn't look like he was going to get. Megatron heaved a sigh and started to pull out, frowning at the pained noises his mate kept making along the way.

“Here,” he said when he'd finally pulled himself free. “I'll just finish you with my mouth.”

Starscream nodded in agreement and rolled over onto his front. “I'll do you after,” he promised.

“Don't forget it,” Megatron told him, grinning saucily as he gripped a shapely thigh in each hand and spread them apart.

He had Starscream shrieking through an overload barely two minutes later, body arching and legs jerking in time to his valve's spasms. As the Seeker started to relax again, his breathing slowing to the intermittent sighs it always did after a particularly good overload, Megatron sat up to admire his handiwork, wiping sticky lubricants from his face. Starscream looked unbearably fetching, lying limp and spent on their covers with his eyes closed and a stupidly vacant little smile on his face.

“Hey,” Megatron murmured, crawling up over him to kiss the corner of his mouth.

Starscream gave a happy little hum and turned his face so they could kiss properly.

“My turn,” the other mech reminded him when they separated.

“Yeah,” the Seeker sighed “Yeah, just a... just a sec.”

Megatron reached down to fist himself while he waited, letting the tip of his erection bump his mate's stomach in gentle reminder.

“Starscream?” he called after a minute or so. There was no reply. He frowned and looked more carefully at the Seeker's face. The brat had gone and fallen asleep on him!

Megatron rolled off him with a sigh of resignation and started pumping himself more vigorously. He only had himself to blame for overloading the little twerp so hard, he supposed. He'd just have to make sure Starscream made it up to him another time.

 

* * *

 

“Another time” didn't come.

Despite Megatron's best efforts to convince himself that there wasn't anything particularly wrong with his mate, it was becoming more and more obvious that there was. Over the course of the next two weeks, the Seeker graduated from low energy and frequent nausea spells to spending almost all of his time lying listless and ill in their bed. He only ever got up for short periods of time when he would wander shaky and pale-faced about the house in search of a new datapad or something to eat before heading straight back to bed.

Megatron was genuinely concerned. He'd dealt with Starscream being ill or injured any number of times in the past, but there had always been some kind of definite cause that he could focus on. Now, it was like his mate was just slipping away from him without rhyme or reason.

He wondered if he should get ahold of Thundercracker and Skywarp, but had no way to do so. When he suggested it to Starscream, the Seeker just scoffed.

“They’re busy slumming with humans. They don’t care if I have the flu,” he said.

Not at all convinced that Starscream did have the flu, Megatron called the doctor from town to come and look at him, but the femme was as mystified as the both of them.

“Your fuel levels are very low,” she told them, “but I don't have the right kind of scanning equipment to tell if there's something wrong with your internals...”

“Then what kind of useless excuse for a doctor are you?” Starscream snapped at her, and Megatron led the femme out into the next room so that he could talk to her without interruption.

“What should I do with him?” he asked.

“Take him to a hospital in one of the cities,” she suggested. “There's definitely something wrong with him; I just don't have the tech out here for this kind of complicated diagnosis. I'm sure you've noticed the slight distension in his lower abdomen.”

Megatron nodded in agreement. That had been getting even more pronounced lately.

“That could be a sign of an internal leak or a growth of some kind. It's difficult to say without advanced imaging equipment.”

“During the war, internal scanners were standard issue for most field medics. Do you not have one somewhere?” the ex-warlord wondered. He couldn't very well take Starscream to a hospital. If someone recognized them, they were liable to refuse treatment at best or attempt to covertly assassinate his mate in a “medical accident” at worst.

“I don't,” she sighed. “That kind of fancy tech doesn't come easy when you mostly get paid in energon rations and clothing, but I do know of a doctor out here who has one. He came through and helped out when we'd had that scraplet infestation a couple years before you two moved in—real miracle worker. Never gave his name, but he left his comm frequency if you wanna try him.”

Megatron thanked the doctor for her time and made a mental note to see about getting her some better equipment at some point. He turned the scrap of paper she'd written the mystery doctor's comm frequency on over in his hands as he considered. It was almost as much risk to bring in a stranger as it would be to take Starscream to the hospital. Still...

He returned to the bedroom, where Starscream seemed to have fallen asleep again. The Seeker opened his eyes a crack when he heard the other mech's footsteps, though.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” he muttered as Megatron came to sit on the edge of the bed beside him.

“It would appear so,” the ex-warlord rumbled, stroking the side of his mate's face.

“I'm dying, aren't I?” Starscream whispered after a moment, and Megatron could feel a tint of genuine fear from him.

“I doubt it,” he answered. “I've always found it unlikely that I would manage to outlive you.”

The Seeker snorted and his eyes fell shut again.

“Starscream?” Megatron called softly after a moment.

“Mm?”

“I love you.”

A slender hand found his and squeezed lightly in reply.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Starscream passed out in their living room. It was several hours before he regained consciousness, just to glance around the room vaguely and slip away again. The pattern continued through the night, and Megatron's apprehensions gradually mounted into full blown panic. Then, sometime the next morning, Starscream woke up and asked for his mother, something he hadn't done in almost 10 million years.

Megatron called the other doctor.

 

* * *

 

When Ratchet had decided to be a doctor for the colonies in the wilds instead of staying in the cities, he'd thought that he was choosing the lower stress route. After ten years of replacing limbs for careless hillbots and pulling ex-Decepticons' arms out of various tight places, he was starting to regret his decision. At least there were two ex-Decepticons in particular that he never had to worry about.

Or so he'd thought.

The call came in the middle of an already chaotic day. He'd answered one early that morning from an energon mining community on the edges of the wastes where three mechs and a femme had fallen down a shaft. Their friends had waited until after they'd dragged the unfortunate 'bots back up to the surface before calling him, so two of the mechs had leaked out hours before he even got there. He’d spent a good six hours piecing the other two back together.

The doctor was in the middle of helping the miners clean up their two dead friends when his comm rang again. He excused himself from the room to answer it.

“Ratchet here; doctor on call.”

There was a long silence on the other end.

“I haven't got all day,” he growled.

“Ratchet...?” a gravelly voice finally came through.

A sudden knot clenched in the old doctor's stomach; he would know that voice anywhere.

“...Megatron?”

There was a mumble from the other side of the line that sounded very much like, “Frag.”

“You were expecting someone else?” Ratchet asked.

“Someone gave me this frequency and said I could get a hold of a good doctor... Never mind. I'll call someone else.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” As much as Ratchet didn't want to deal with the ex-warlord, he was at least curious to know why the mighty Megatron was asking people for doctors' frequencies to begin with. “What can I help you with,  _ Lord _ Megatron?”

Static spat down the line as Megatron growled in annoyance. “Okay. Okay, if it was just for me, I wouldn't....” Another growl.

Ratchet made a couple of notes on his file for his current case while Megatron prevaricated. “In your own time,” he muttered. “Not like I'm busy, or anything.”

“Okay, fine! You know what? This is probably better. At least I know you know what you're doing.”

“So, what's the problem?”

“It's Starscream.”

“Of course it is.”

“I know the feeling, but... He's really sick. He has been for weeks now—maybe months.”

Ratchet hummed disinterestedly as a couple of the miners came into the room. They were trying to talk to him, offer some kind of thanks, but he waved them off.

“What symptoms?” he wanted to know.

“Nothing especially unusual—he's tired all the time, throwing up, losing weight... Except there's this weird lump in his lower abdomen that seems to be getting bigger. We already tried our local physician, but she said she didn't have the right equipment to diagnose him. Yesterday, he passed out, and he won't wake up properly. I'm not... I just don't know.”

There was fear in the former warlord's voice, and Ratchet frowned. Well, he'd been hoping for a nice tidbit of gossip about his former archnemesis, but he'd gotten something more like a three-course meal's worth. He would have to go out there just to talk with that local doctor, though, if she hadn't been able to diagnose this one.

“Has he had any cycles lately?” he asked, just to be sure.

“No. He should be hitting a round sometime in the next few years, though. It's not... Could his chamber be blocked somehow?”

“Or you knocked him up before he could start,” Ratchet grumbled. “I suppose contraception is probably beneath the slagmaker of Kaon.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and another thought occurred to Ratchet.

“Megatron, you haven't been out of the wilds for a good long while, have you?” he asked.

“No?”

“Don't read a lot of news, either, do you?”

“I... It helps to avoid the temptation to meddle if I don't know what's going on,” the ex-warlord explained.

Ratchet sighed and pulled his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose as he thought. It sounded like Starscream was in the beginning stages of a difficult pregnancy. Of course, there wasn’t really any way that Starscream could have a normal pregnancy after what Vigor had done to his spark, but that was beside the point. Apparently, neither of the Decepticon high command had gotten the memo that mechs even  _ could _ get pregnant again. 

If Ratchet were to leave the situation be, Starscream would probably die, relieving the world of one of its major nuisances. Unfortunately, that would also mean letting an unborn newspark die, and the old doctor wasn't quite  _ that _ jaded yet. Not to mention, his determination to mend his relationship with Starscream was probably the only reason that Megatron wasn’t out there trying to seize control of their recovering civilization.

“Right, well. Why don't you try looking up a mech called Oilspill, and I'll be over there in an hour or two,” he said finally.

“Ratchet, are you trying to tell me that Starscream is... that we...” Megatron's voice had taken on a pitch of terror, and that more than anything else was going to make this more than worthwhile, the doctor reflected.

“I can't say anything for sure until I get there, but I suggest you brace yourself for a bit of a surprise, ” Ratchet told him, unable to suppress a grin.

 

* * *

 

Megatron wasn’t sure how long he spent staring at the wall after the call ended.

Pregnant.

Ratchet thought that Starscream was....

He moved back into the bedroom almost in a trance and stared down at the mech on the bed. 

There was no way that Starscream could be pregnant. Mechs hadn’t carried since before the Great Catachlysm. So claimed Alpha Trion’s records, at least. More scientific studies suggested that mechs and femmes’ fertility capabilities had been gradually segregating themselves over the millions of years leading up to the discovery of spark harvesting and cold construction, but that was all beside the point. Starscream himself was not and never had been capable of carrying a sparkling.

But, then again, Megatron realized, if any mech  _ was _ going to somehow defy nature and get pregnant, wouldn’t it be Starscream?

The ex-warlord sank down onto the chair beside the bed once more and tried to focus in on the Seeker’s presence in their bond. If Starscream was carrying a newspark, then surely he’d be able to feel it.

A newspark.

Something tiny, helpless, utterly useless… and  _ theirs. _ Something to build up after too many years of tearing down. Something that would know nothing of the war or their parts in it…

“What are you doing?”

Megatron started slightly. He hadn’t noticed when Starscream’s eyes had opened, but now the Seeker was staring back at him with a petulant crease between them.

“You’re awake,” the older mech remarked stupidly.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Starscream demanded, his voice weak and slightly slurred.

“Just spacing out,” Megatron told him, moving forward eagerly to touch him. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” the Seeker replied, starting to pull the covers off. “And hot.”

His mate helped him, and then watched as the younger mech stretched himself out, his shirt falling back to expose the bulge of his stomach. Megatron laid a cautious hand on it, wondering if Starscream was far enough along that he could possibly feel movement if there actually was a sparkling inside.

“You scared me,” Megatron told him, massaging the lower part of his abdomen.

“Good,” Starscream sighed, eyes closed once more. “Gotta keep you on your toes.”

“Don’t go back to sleep,” the ex-warlord begged him.

“I told you, I’m tired,” his mate whined, cracking one eye open. “And my stomach feels weird. Ugh! Do you feel that?”

“What?”

“It’s like something’s kicking me in the stomach every couple minutes. We need another doctor already.”

Megatron paused, spark jumping.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, I think we do.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Decepticon high command's current place of residence was a house on the outer edges of the Sea of Rust. Its reddish brown walls would have risen almost imperceptibly out of the dusty landscape if it hadn't been for the patch of fading greenery surrounding it.

The garden and yard looked like they had been somewhat impressive during the spring and summer months, but now, with winter fast approaching, almost everything except the tinsel bushes had long since lost their splendor. Still, someone had to have gone to great lengths to channel mineral waters and energon up from deep below the planet's surface to maintain all of it, and Ratchet couldn't help but wonder: were the Decepticons somehow making enough money to hire a gardener, or had Megatron taken up some new hobbies?

Wind was whipping the branches of the ornamental trees, driving forward the dark clouds visible on the horizon as Ratchet approached the property. A pack of dogs came running from behind the house to meet him a few hundred yards out and bark at his back tires the rest of the way. They drew back when the doctor flipped out of his alt mode, and then came in close again to sniff him and his bag.

“Get off,” Ratchet snapped, shoving at wet noses on all sides as he made his way up the carefully trimmed front path.

Megatron was waiting for him by the time he got to the door, arms folded and face set in a grim expression that almost masked the panic in his eyes.

“Ratchet,” he acknowledged when the doctor reached him.

“Slagmaker,” Ratchet inclined his head.

“There's no need for all that,” Megatron growled.

“I may be obligated under medical oath to help you, but I'm under no obligations to be nice about it,” Ratchet told him.

“Fine,” the ex-warlord sighed. “But just... I looked up Oilspill—first recorded case of a carrying mech in Primus knows how many millions of years, right?”

“Yes, that would be the one,” the doctor agreed.

“You don't honestly think Starscream is... That he's... That  _ we _ ...”

“Probably,” Ratchet interrupted. “Though I maintain hope that he's dying of indeterminate causes.”

Megatron's expression darkened.

“I'm afraid you will find that Starscream's life is something I take very seriously these days, Doctor,” he growled.

“Well, that's good to hear, considering there's about an eighty-percent chanceo he's carrying your sparkling right now,” Ratchet remarked, relishing the slight wince Megatron made when he finally spoke the words out loud. “Why don't you show me to the patient?”

The inside of the house was dark, but surprisingly clean. Ratchet couldn't imagine either of the former Decepticons picking up a broom or a duster, so wasn't sure what to make of the well-polished floors and spotless windows. And what a lot of windows there were! At least one wall in every room seemed to be entirely glass. As they passed through the wide hall toward the back of the house, Ratchet found himself staring up at the vaulted ceilings and reflecting that this house had clearly been designed with a Seeker's comfort in mind. He wondered where it had come from.

“I haven't told him, by the way,” Megatron spoke suddenly, pausing at the base of a wide staircase. “What you suspect is wrong with him—I haven't told Starscream yet. And if that  _ is  _ the case, then I should probably be the one to break the news in the least traumatic way possible.”

Ratchet nodded in agreement. He'd seen a wide range of reactions from mechs learning they were going to become mothers over the past few decades, ranging from excitement to... Well, 'traumatized' was actually an apt description, and he was willing to bet that Starscream would be closer to that side of things simply by virtue of being Starscream. At least he hadn't gotten all the way to delivery before going to a doctor. There was nothing quite like getting called out by a mech who thought he'd been poisoned or was having a cycle gone very, very wrong only to have to tell him that he'd better start pushing and thinking of names.

The bedroom was on the second floor and was almost entirely windows from floor to ceiling except the wall that connected it to the rest of the house. They rattled with the howling wind of the approaching storm as Megatron strode over the stone floor to the figure lying on the bed, which Ratchet recognized instantly as Starscream.

The Seeker shifted slightly as his conjunx came near. Ratchet noted that he'd let his hair grow out since the last time they'd seen each other; it was draped across his shoulder in a loose braid. Megatron brushed back the bits that had come loose around his face as he murmured something in the smaller mech's ear. Starscream's eyes fluttered open and his eyebrows drew together slightly when they settled on Ratchet.

“No,” he whined. “Go away.”

“Always a pleasure, Starscream,” the doctor returned as he set his bag on the nightstand.

“Megs, why?” the Seeker mumbled, turning to his conjunx.

“Because he's the only medic on this entire planet I trust to find out what's wrong with you and to fix it without trying to kill you in the process,” Megatron told him, starting to pull the blankets back.

“Nothing wrong with me,” Starscream insisted, trying to roll over and bury himself into the pillows. “'M just tired.”

“Yes, well, then just let him scan you real quick, and then you can go back to sleep,” Megatron promised, carefully rolling the whining Seeker back over.

Of course, Ratchet had seen the reformed Megatron back on Earth when the whole Vigor thing went down, but seeing him be anything but cruel and demeaning to Starscream still always came as a surprise.

Starscream continued to pout, but eventually let his mate unbutton the front of his shirt so Ratchet could scan him, having to elbow Megatron away as the ex-warlord tried to lean in and read the results over his shoulder. Not that he really needed a spark scan after seeing the Seeker's belly, but he imagined a printout of the readings would go a long way in convincing Starscream of what was happening inside him.

Ratchet didn't even have to wait for the scan to finish before he saw it: a second, smaller spark nestled safely within Starscream's own. It was even developed enough for his scanner to pick out the gender. He hummed with interest and went on to scan the rest of Starscream's body.

“What?” Starscream demanded. “Don't just  _ hum _ at me, you hack! What did you find!?”

“Starscream, let him finish,” Megatron murmured,  stroking the Seeker's hair. 

The complete scan brought up warnings of low fuel levels, strained auxiliary systems, and critical mineral deficiencies, but the developing protoform in Starscream’s gestation chamber was healthy and thriving and already establishing a link with its spark. It was a near thing, though. Ratchet would guess the Seeker's body was just at the edge of what it could handle before it would have cut the flow of resources.

“Are you finished yet?” Starscream snapped after a silence that seemed to stretch on into eternity.

“We should talk, Megatron,” Ratchet concluded, gathering up his bag once more and nodding toward the hall.

“What?” Starscream wanted to know, and he looked suddenly very small and weak and terrified as his mate brushed a hand across his stomach and rose from the bed. “Megatron, what's going on? It's  _ my _ body; you have to tell me!”

“It's okay, niblet. I'll be right back,” the ex-warlord promised as he followed Ratchet to the door.

“No!” the Seeker insisted, pushing himself up with trembling limbs. “You're going to tell me what's going on right this second or I swear I'll...I'll...I'll throw up on your side of the bed!”

“You've been doing that anyway,” Megatron reminded him. “Just stay there and I'll be right back.”

They shut the door on the Seeker's frightened face, and Ratchet offered out the scanner.

“Congratulations, it's a femme,” he announced in a low voice.

The ex-warlord just stared in shock at the readings for a minute or two.

“He's pregnant,” he finally said.

“Yes,” Ratchet agreed, waiting for Megatron to get over the shock so they could get through the part where he told him about the rigorous treatment regime Starscream was going to need if he wanted to  _ stay _ pregnant much longer.

“It's... That lump in his stomach, it was a sparkling?” the ex-warlord asked next. “It was  _ our sparkling _ this whole time?”

“I can't imagine who else it could belong to,” Ratchet muttered.

Megatron brought a hand up to cover the grin that was trying to spread across his face.

“Sweet merciful Primus, I'm gonna be a father,” he breathed.

“Yes,  _ if _ ,” Ratchet interrupted forcefully, “you can get Starscream's health back up.”

The grin fell from the former slagmaker's face as he seemed to register those words.

“Scrap, he's been so sick…” he realized. “Is it… She. Is she okay?”

“No worries there. She seems to have inherited both your tenacity and her mother's knack for leaching resources off others,” Ratchet assured him, and Megatron had the nerve to look proud. “As for the sickness, he's just out of the first trimester right now, so it might let up, but it's been barely half a century since Vigor tried to use him as a battery pack. I'm guessing the new strain is a bit much, and you've got a case of hyperemesis gravidarum on your hands, which is just a fancy way of saying he'll be tossing his energon until the sparkling gets here unless he gets some medical assistance.”

“When?” Megatron wanted to know.

“Right away,” the doctor replied. “I’ll set him up with a nutrient drip before I leave, and then--”

“No, I mean when will the sparkling be here?” the other mech interrupted.

Ratchet glanced back down at his scanner critically.

“Six months? Little bit less?” he guessed. “Mind you, if she takes much after you, then he’ll have a rough labor if he carries her to full term.”

“How so?” Megatron frowned.

“Mechs’ hips aren’t well-suited to birthing as it is—probably one of the reasons evolution favored femmes for it over the eons—and his are narrower than most, and your head is bigger than most,” Ratchet pointed out.

“Oh.”

Ratchet watched the expressions shifting over Megatron’s face then as it apparently started to sink in for the former warlord that his mate was actually carrying an actual sparkling  _ inside of _ his actual body and what that was going to entail.

“I’d say he’ll be fine, but I honestly can’t make promises,” the doctor continued. “I’ve seen more birthing complications in the last fifty years than in all the millions I’ve been a doctor before that. I don’t know what the reason is that mechs started carrying again, but if it really was the Will of Primus, then I'd like a few words with him.”

“Starscream will be fine,” Megatron said firmly.

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll  _ survive _ ,” Ratchet agreed. “Haven’t seen anyone actually die in birth since before the golden age. Well… not my patients, at least.”

“Then he will  _ be _ your patient,” the former warlord growled.

“As much as the idea pains me, you going on a murder spree because some country doctor didn’t know how to stop a post-partum hemorrhage is worse,” the older mech huffed. “Now, since I have other things to do today, I’ll go fix him up with that drip, and be on my way so you can break the news.”

“What's the rest of the care regime going to entail?” Megatron wanted to know.

Ratchet glanced back at the scanner, rereading the assortment of minerals Starscream was so severely deficient in, and couldn't hold back a snort.

“You know, I think after I get this infusion in him, he'll probably let you know himself,” he said, giving the ex-warlord’s arm a condescending pat and relishing the look of confused frustration this elicited.

 

* * *

 

Starscream wasn't happy about Ratchet setting up the drip, but they got it done after much wheedling on Megatron's part. As soon as the seeker was complacent once more, a steady stream of nutrients feeding into his arm, Megatron saw their visitor to the door.

"Is there anything we should look out for in the next few days?" he wanted to know. "Signs that his condition is going one way or the other?"

"If he starts complaining of intense abdominal pain or hemmorhaging out his valve, call me," Ratchet advised. "Otherwise, the increased iron intake I recommended should help with the nausea, and you'll see rapid improvement as soon as he starts keeping his fuel down… among other things."

Megatron nodded, trying not to think much on the suggestion of Starscream hemmorhaging from anywhere, and the medic finally took his leave, promising to return in a week's time. The warlord stayed on the front porch for a while, watching the retreating dust cloud that the ambulance's wheels kicked up until it was little more than a blur on the horizon. A couple of snowflakes had started falling by then, and he brushes them from his hair before heading inside.

Now for the hard part—telling Starscream.

It couldn't be that bad, Megatron tried to convince himself as he climbed the stairs to their bedroom once more. After all, a few weeks ago they'd been half-certain that Starscream was dying. 'Pregnant' had to be a fair step up from 'dying,’ right?

When he reached the bedroom, Megatron didn't enter right away, but rather leaned on the doorframe, drinking in the sight of his mate curled on his side amidst the covers. Lethally beautiful and wickedly intelligent—not exactly the image that came to mind if the ex-warlord were to try and conjur an image of an ideal mother in his mind, but certainly everything he’d ever needed in a partner.

Starscream shifted, noticing the other mech's presence, and started to push himself up.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?" he whined, swaying slightly where he sat.

"It's... complicated," Megatron told him. He finally pushed off the door frame and moved across the room to take a seat on the edge of the bed. Starscream scowled at him as he sank down.

"It's my body," he reiterated. "Just tell me if I'm dying or not."

"You're not dying," his mate assured him, reaching for one of his hands and letting his gaze drift out the window where it was starting to snow in earnest, thick flakes whipping almost horizontal against their windows. He hoped the dogs would have the sense to find their ways to the barn before the storm got too bad.

“Then  _ what!? _ ” Starscream demanded, pulling his thoughts back inside. “Tell me or I'll rip out this IV, which, by the way, I'm still not convinced isn't toxic.”

Megatron heaved a sigh and leaned forward, cupping his free servo over his mate's lower abdomen.

“This is going to sound crazy, Star, but I promise it's the truth,” he started.

“What?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Primus, Megatron! Just  _ tell me already! _ ”

“You're pregnant.”

For a long moment, Starscream just stared at him, and then he tugged his hand out of his mate's grasp.

“By the Allspark, Megatron,” he hissed. “You had better be lying.”

“No one knows how,” Megatron continued, starting to massage gently at his mate's stomach. “It was just a few months after they got the new Senate arranged, a mech called Oilspill came into Ark City from one of the colonies looking for a doctor and ended up giving birth to our species’ first mech-carried ‘bot in who know how many generations.”

“Yeah, I read the news, Megs, even if you don't!” Starscream snarled. “I just don't want to be fragging  _ pregnant! _ ”

Megatron blinked at him.

“Wait. You _ knew _ you were fertile again?”

“No! I knew that  _ mechs _ were fertile again! I thought _ I  _ had at least another century before I had to even think about it! Ugh! Call Ratchet back; we need to terminate it before it's too late.”

“ _ Starscream! _ ” Megatron hadn't known his mate still had the capacity to horrify him. “That's our  _ daughter _ you're talking about!”

“No, it isn't!” the Seeker shot back, his voice crescendoing into a panicked shriek as he shoved Megatron away from himself. “It's a _ parasite _ in _ my body _ , and I want it _ OUT! _ ”

“It's just a few months, Starscream!” the older mech tried to reason. “You only have to put up with it for _ six months _ —surely that's worth an entire  _ life! _ ”

“It's not ‘just a few months,’ Megatron! It's the rest of my fragging  _ life! _ Motherhood isn't a fragging case of black vent! I don't  _ want _ a sparkling!”

“Well, maybe  _ I _ do! Did you think of that!?”

“Then  _ you _ carry her!” Starscream shouted back. “ _ You _ listen to her singing in the back of your spark for the next six months!  _ You _ rip yourself apart pushing her out!  _ You _ spend the  _ rest of your life _ feeling the ghost of  _ every single pain _ she ever has and know that… that at least half of them… are probably  _ your _ fault because… because there's _ NO WAY  _ that  _ either of us _ could _ ever _ be a  _ good MOTHER!!! _ ”

There were tears tracking down the Seeker’s face now, and all Megatron could do was watch as he tried to wipe them away furiously.

“So,” he ventured after a while, “you do want her?”

Starscream let out a shriek of frustration and snatched a datapad from beneath his pillow to chuck at the other mech. Megatron dodged, and it smashed on the stone floor somewhere behind him.

“I want to go to sleep!” Starscream howled, throwing himself down on the bed. “Just leave me alone!”

Instead, Megatron crawled up into the bed beside him, gathering the Seeker’s trembling form up against himself. Predictably, Starscream flailed in protest, sank his teeth into one of his mate’s arms, elbowed him in the stomach, and then finally melted into a sobbing mess against his chest.

Megatron chose not to press the issue anymore that night. His mate was tired and sick and… well,  _ pregnant _ . Whatever understanding needed to be reached, they could do so after he’d gotten the rest of his nutrient drip and a good night’s sleep. Or possibly a couple good days’ of sleep and whatever this other medical care Ratchet seemed to think he needed was. 

When Starscream had finally cried himself to sleep, Megatron got up to disconnect his emptied IV. The Seeker didn’t even stir when he slid the needle out of his skin. Then, the ex-warlord sank back into bed beside him, staring out at the swirls of white flying furiously past their windows and gently caressing his sleeping mate’s hair and hoping that in a few years he might do the same for their daughter.

For now, Megatron was at least relieved that Starscream was upset by the thought of being a terrible mother. After all, he wouldn’t care either way if there wasn’t at least a small part of him that wanted to try.

 

* * *

 

 

A shuffling in the sheets pulled Megatron from his dreams sometime after midnight. He woke slowly, almost drifting back off a couple of times before a particularly sharp movement would resonate through the mattress and jolt him back to near-consciousness again.

"Starscream," the ex-warlord grunted after several minutes of this, and his bedmate suddenly stilled. Megatron heaved a sigh of relief and was just settling back in when a tendril of warmth slipped into their bond, prodding and tugging with tentative request. At the same time, a physical warmth started shifting closer to his back.

"Megs?" a thick, breathless voice whispered in the darkness. 

The covers shifted as the Seeker sought him out beneath them, lifting momentarily, and all at once, a heavy, heady, musky scent filled every one of Megatron's senses. It had to be Starscream—it  _ was _ his smell—but the ex-warlord couldn't remember his mate ever smelling quite  _ that  _ good before. 

He opened his eyes as warm, moist fingers brushed his shoulder blade, their conflict earlier in the evening suddenly long forgotten.

"What?" he asked, hoping against hope that this was what he thought it was because his spike was already halfway pressurized.

Starscream closed the distance between them, pressing his warm, firm little body against his mate's. Megatron could feel the gentle bulge of their unborn daughter against his back, and suddenly every instinct he had was telling him that he should be burying himself in the Seeker's valve right now, no more procrastinating.

Almost in a trance, the ex-warlord rolled over, taking his mate in his arms and locking mouths with him as he pinned the smaller mech beneath himself. Starscream responded enthusiastically, fingers and knees alike gripping at Megatron's body. He was warmer than usual, almost feverish, and there was a hooded, half-asleep quality to his normally sharp eyes when Megatron finally pulled back to look at him.

"Frag me?" the Seeker offered, sliding his hands up to twine through his mate's hair.

Megatron growled low in his throat, unable to summon words with that intoxicating scent still filling his head, and began humping the other mech.

"You're... Take off your pants, idiot!" Starscream whined, trying to slide Megatron's waistband down with his feet.

Somehow, Megatron managed to take his hands off the Seeker long enough to free his erection, and a moment later he was sliding into silky, wet heat for the first time in weeks. Beneath him, Starscream stiffened, eyes shut and mouth open, and then started to arch and kick in time to the pulses of his tightening valve.

"Already!?" Megatron despaired when his mate finally relaxed, his breath still coming in quick gasps.

Starscream shook his head and dug his heels into the other mech's back.

"More," he gasped. "I need! More!"

Megatron gave it to him, lying flat on top of him with his face buried in the Seeker's neck. He pistoned his hips as hard and fast as he could, relishing every crescendoing cry he pulled from his mate as well as the feel of his swollen abdomen between them.

His mate.

His daughter.

His family.

Starscream overloaded again, this time almost in tears as Megatron continued thrusting mercilessly through it, chasing a climax of his own that he couldn't remember ever feeling so important before. Without thinking, he sank his teeth into the Seeker's shoulder and bit down. Starscream drew in a sharp breath, his whole body tensing down to his valve, and Megatron felt himself burst on the next thrust, spilling into the smaller mech in long, forceful spurts.

When it was over, his spike giving its last furtive twitches, he finally released his jaws.

"Ow!" Starscream complained, slapping at his chest. "What was that for?"

"Just wanted to," Megatron grunted, and then noticed the glimmer of energon welling up from the circle of marks on his Seeker's pale skin. "Sorry."

His mate glared up at him, eyes far more focused than they had been before their little romp, and the ex-warlord found himself almost beaming at him in response.

"It's not funny!" Starscream snapped. "I can't believe you'd take advantage of my half-asleep insanity like that!"

"What else am I supposed to do when you start smearing lubricant on me in my sleep?" Megatron asked, leaning down to kiss his forehead. "I can't resist you when you smell this good."

The Seeker's scent had lost its mind-numbing intoxication, but there was still something about it that made Megatron just want to melt into him.

"It's pheromones!" Starscream snapped. "Now it's got enough nutrients for it, my body's making pheromones in an attempt to get you to jump my bones as often as possible."

"Why?" Megatron wanted to know, pulling back slightly.

"Get out of me already, will you?" Starscream grumbled, pushing at his bulk.

It had been a while since Megatron had been  _ in _ Starscream, though, and he wasn't in a hurry to change positions. He tightened his grip on his mate instead, squishing their bodies together.

"Megatron!" the Seeker whined, attempting to wriggle away without success.

"Why would your body want me to jump your bones?" the other mech repeated.

"You're so...!" Starscream began, and then let off with a noise of frustration. "Because transfluid has compounds in it that are essential for healthy newspark development, alright? How can you not know that?"

Actually, Megatron had known that once upon a time, but had forgotten in the millions of intervening years in which no one had needed to know what was good or bad for newsparks.

"All the more reason for us to stay like this for a bit," he smirked. "Wouldn't want anything to drip out."

"Bastard," Starscream huffed, tightening himself to squeeze the spike still embedded in his valve.

"At least my daughter won't be," Megatron replied, trailing kisses up his neck in return.

“Why do you want one so badly?” the Seeker huffed. “Neither of us has the first idea what to do with a femme.”

Megatron rocked his hips gently, enjoying the pleased sighs this drew from Starscream, while he considered how to phrase his answer.

“Because I love you,” he said finally, coming up on his elbows to look his mate in the eye and to trace circles over his spark. “She’ll be at least half you, won’t she?”

Starscream’s eyebrows drew together slightly, and Megatron felt the Seeker’s hands slip between them, covering the other mech’s stomach.

“You don’t always love me,” he accused. “And what if she gets all the bad parts?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works. There’s both a nature and nurture component involved, after all,” the older mech reminded him. He started pulling his spike out, accepting at last that he was probably too tired to pressurize again anytime soon, however much he wanted to.

Starscream grumbled something under his breath and winced when Megatron straightened his legs for him.

“I have to pee,” he announced, rolling over out of bed before his mate could trap him in a post-coital embrace, and Megatron watched with a stupid smile plastered across his face as the Seeker shuffled toward the bathroom in nothing but a loose t-shirt.

Outside, the snow had softened to large, lazy flakes piling gently atop the sharper drifts that the storm had shaped first. Megatron watched them fall through half-lidded eyes while he thrummed affection at Starscream.

_ “...listen to her singing in the back of your spark…” _

The Seeker’s words from earlier drifted back to him. Of course, he knew that it was entirely different to carry a spark within yours for almost a year than simply to be the cause of said spark’s creation. As her mother, Starscream would forge a bond with their daughter that Megatorn could never hope to fully understand, and he was somewhat jealous of the both of them for it. He would have carried her himself if he could have, but he sincerely doubted that the gift of fertility Primus had suddenly decided to bestow on his sons would extend to those like himself who had opted for hysterectomy millions of years ago. Megatron had had his own chamber removed before Starscream was even alive.

Still, he reflected as the Seeker’s warmth slipped back into their bed a few minutes later, Starscream was wrong on one count. Megatron was intimately aware of how it felt to love someone, to feel that person’s pain, and to know that most of it was your fault. If the two of them could make this work after everything that had happened, then parenthood couldn’t be that far out of reach.

The ex-warlord rolled over to spoon his mate’s warm, soft backside and inhaled a lungful of the Seeker’s new and improved scent. Yes, something purred from deep within him, reproducing with this mech was a brilliant idea.

It wasn’t until he was almost asleep again that Megatron suddenly remembered Ratchet’s comment from that afternoon about Starscream letting him know what the rest of his medical regime was going to entail, and his eyes snapped open again in the dark with an indignant gasp.

“Shut up,” Starscream mumbled at him, and Megatron found himself obeying without complaint.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that Cybertronians in this AU hit near physical maturity around 20, but are emotionally more like preteens until almost 1 million, which is when they hit puberty and get alt modes and stuff.

It was almost midnight when Ratchet finally got, and fantasies about tubs of hot solvent followed by crisp sheets had to be pushed aside before he’d even had a chance to flip out of alt mode. The snow wasn’t so intense here on the edges of the city, and there was no howling wind to mask the sound of shouting coming from the house at the end of the lane.

Arcee was out on the front porch, just putting up the last of the storm windows and acting as if she couldn’t hear the commotion.

“Would it kill you to help sometimes?” Ratchet demanded as he stomped past her, knocking snow from his boots and coat.

“He got himself into this one, he can get himself out,” she shrugged. “How was your day?”

“Riveting.”

Ratchet pulled off his dripping boots and outerwear in the front hall while he tried to get the gist of the fight going on in the kitchen.

“It's not like everyone else doesn't do it!” a young mech’s voice rang out petulantly. “I didn't see you dragging any of  _ them _ home by the arm!!”

“None of _ them _ are my responsibility!” an older mech shouted back.

“Well, neither am I!!”

“Your mother left you with us—”

“She didn’t leave me with  _ you _ , Prowl! She left me with Ratchet!”

“And Ratchet would like to know what the slag is going on here,” the doctor announced as he entered the kitchen. 

Prowl looked up sharply, the dark circles under his eyes more noticeable than they'd been when Ratchet had watched him rushing off to work that morning. He was standing rigid against the sink with his arms folded so tightly across his chest that the seams in his jacket shoulders looked to be on the verge of bursting, as Ratchet was sure his patience was.

Across the kitchen from him stood a young mech, just barely old enough for Ratchet to see him as a youngling instead of a sparkling, with flaming red hair and a pair of brilliant blue eyes that would have been an exact copy of Optimus Prime's if the mechling didn't spend so much time looking sullen and ornery. Ratchet maintained hope that this was merely a phase, though, and Rodimus would not spend the entire first million years of his life in a perpetual adolescent sulk.

“Yes, what  _ is  _ going on here, Rodimus?” Prowl snapped. “Maybe you’d care to tell Ratchet, now that he’s here.”

“ _ Hot Rod _ ,” the mechling shot back. “My name’s  _ Hot Rod _ , not Rodimus!”

Prowl started opening his mouth to respond to that, and Ratchet held up his hand with an aggravated noise before he could get going.

“Rodimus, Hot Rod, or Deathsaurus, I don’t care what you want to be called, just answer the fragging question.”

Hot Rod nee Rodimus made a face and squirmed slightly under the doctor’s judgmental gaze.

“It wasn’t as bad as it sounds,” he muttered. “It was just—”

“He was at a gladiator match!” Prowl interrupted.

Silence descended over the kitchen as that proclamation percolated through Ratchet's brain. Hot Rod shifted uncomfortably, refusing to meet his stare, and Ratchet had to remind himself that the mechling was just that. He was too young to know any better.

It still took every bit of control Ratchet had left to keep his voice level when he spoke.

“Who brought you there?”

“They're just  _ fights! _ ” Hot Rod insisted in non-answer. “It's not like anyone is getting killed there, or anything! What's the big deal!?”

“The fact that you can stand there and ask that question is a mark of how privileged and sheltered your upbringing has been!” Prowl snapped.

“I know about gladiators! It's not like I've never read a history book!” the mechling scoffed.

“Knowing and understanding are not the same thing,” Ratchet sighed. “Otherwise, you would have realized—”

“Just because I'm young doesn't mean I'm stupid!” Hot Rod tried to interject, and Ratchet raised his voice to continue.

“—that Cybertron  _ doesn't do 'just fights! _ ' We  _ can't! _ Mechs and femmes who've lived to kill for four million years  _ cannot _ 'just fight.'”

“You weren't even there!”

“Prowl was!” Ratchet countered. “And he knows damn well more about how to tell what's going on behind the scenes at a place like that than you do!”

Hot Rod snorted. “What? Do you think there's some secret murder chamber behind the ring where they kill all the losers or something?”

“Yes,” Prowl answered without missing a beat.

Apparently, Hot Rod had not calculated for the possibility of this response. His mouth flapped soundlessly again for a moment or two as he looked back and forth between the two adults like he was hoping to see some indication that they were joking.

“Well... You guys... You're just making it up because you hate everything fun!” he finally came back with. If I joined a  _ band _ , you’d start lecturing me about how I’m going to damage my audials from all the noise, or something!”

“If your band played the kinds of music you blast in your bedroom all the time, then yeah, probably,” Ratchet shrugged.

“You’re just a bitter old mech! I can’t  _ wait _ until my mom gets back!”

“Just stay away from the gladiator rings in the meantime,” Prowl cut in. “I catch you there again and you’ll find more than a lock on your bedroom door.”

“This is abuse!” Hot Rod insisted. “Brake told me: you guys aren’t allowed to confine me to my room or I can report you to the government!”

“Yeah, except, as far as the government is concerned, you don’t exist. Remember?” Ratchet commented casually as he moved toward the energon dispenser. “So, if it keeps your head on your shoulders, Prowl is welcome to utilize whatever Kaonian methods of discipline he wants. I guarantee you Elita will not complain if she comes back to find you locked in your bedroom, alive and whole.”

Hot Rod gaped at him for a moment, his mouth moving like he wanted to say something to that but had forgotten how to form words, and then, quite abruptly, he dropped his face into his hands and began to sob. Ratchet gritted his teeth. It was so hard to remember after so many years without them that, however much they might look like it, younglings were not adults.

“What do you think you’re crying for?” Prowl snapped.

“Prowl,” Ratchet growled through his teeth. “Go and take your meds.”

“I already have.”

“Then go to bed, and we’ll talk tomorrow! Doctor’s orders!”

When the other mech had stomped out of the room, Ratchet stepped over to Hot Rod, who was now in the hiccuping, snot-wiping stage of things.

“What’s all this, then?” the doctor asked, trying to sound more gentle about it than Prowl had. If there was one thing he’d learned since Elita had left her son with them, it was that gruffness rarely served a purpose with hysterical juveniles.

“Why are you all so… so  _ mean!? _ ” Hot Rod choked.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“No you aren’t! You… You don’t c-c-care about my f-feelings at all! You don’t  _ get _ it! You don’t  _ have _ any f-friends!”

“Hot Rod,” Ratchet sighed, reaching out to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You aren’t going to lose your friends just because you don’t go to all the same places they do. They’re not going to forget you—”

“They will! They will!” Hot Rod wailed. “I… I d-d-don’t even…  _ exist! _ ”

“ _ That’s _ what you’re upset about? Rodimus, you know that’s not what that means.”

“I don’t even get to go to… to school! Everyone else goes to school! I want to go to school, Ratchet!”

“Well, that sentiment’s liable to lose you more friends than any missed gladiator nights.”

The youngling let out a cry of frustration and smacked Ratchet away. He ran into Arcee as he attempted to storm out of the kitchen. Or, rather, he ran toward Arcee, who did one of her bizarre gymnastic maneuvers to switch their positions. He stopped crying for a second to blink at her, and then continued on through the living room and up the stairs.

“If I’d remembered what kids were like, I wouldn’t have stuck around for this,” Arcee muttered as the sound of his tantrum faded. “Between him and Prowl, it’s like the nursery houses around here.”

“Yeah, well… At least Prowl’s getting better,” Ratchet muttered, running a hand over his face. “Did you spend much time in the nursery houses?”

“Me?” She let out a bark of genuine laughter. “Not even the Functionists could ignore individual disposition to that extent.”

“Fair enough.” Ratchet finally turned back to the dispenser to fill a cup.

“What kept you out so late? Thought you were just going down to Copperhead area,” Arcee wondered.

Now it was Ratchet’s turn to laugh.

“Well, now you've gotta tell me,” the femme prompted.

Ratchet faced her once more and tipped his cup toward the table. “Sit down for this one.”

 

* * *

 

Cold morning light woke Megatron some hours after the break of day. The ex-warlord grunted in annoyance and pulled an arm over his eyes before reaching out for his bedmate. Empty sheets met his fingers instead, Starscream’s warmth still lingering on them. Megatron frowned, and then lifted his arm from his face as he heard the shower turn on. It had been weeks since Starscream had gotten up and showered without prompting. Curious, and more than a little lovesick, the ex-warlord started crawling his way out of the covers. 

When he swung his feet over the edge of the bed, the frigid stone floor sent a shiver up his spine in sharp contrast to the growing warmth that was radiating through his and Starscream’s bond. He curled his toes in anticipation and stumbled his way toward the bathroom.

The door slid back to release a cloud of warm, moist air, and Megatron peered through the steam to the slender figure silhouetted against the shower door. Starscream was standing in the middle of the shower, bent slightly forward with one arm braced against the wall and the other holding the shower head between his spread thighs.

One of Megatron's eyebrows shot up as the Seeker let out a contented hum and their bond sang with arousal. He stepped forward and took hold of the door handle.

Starscream jolted and whirled as the glass door clicked and creaked open.

"I'm not..." he started to blurt, dripping wet hair plastered to flushed cheeks. 

Megatron didn't let him finish, just stepped fully clothed into the shower to pull the smaller mech into a kiss. The Seeker squirmed for a moment before pressing into him.

"I don't..."  Starscream whined when the ex-warlord pulled away, keeping his face cupped in both hands. He wriggled slightly, knees pressed together, and refused to meet Megatron's eyes. "We just... Last night, we just... But I still need it so bad!"

"That sounds like the opposite of a problem to me," Megatron chuckled, kissing solvent from his neck as he walked forward to pin the Seeker between himself and the wall of the shower. Starscream kept one hand on his mate's chest to avoid being crushed, his feet slipping slightly on the wet tiles.

Megatron took the showerhead from the Seeker's other hand and tossed it aside to spray wherever it pleased while he took over where it had left off.

"I... I'm gonna come!" Starscream gasped almost the second the other mech's fingers started to tease him.

"Unusually sensitive, aren't you?" Megatron rumbled, continuing to rub circles on his node anyway.

"It's... excess energon.. flo-OH!"

He gripped the ex-warlord's biceps for dear life and Megatron pulled back. Starscream whined, but Megatron wasn't done with him. He stepped back to pull off his soaked pajamas, tossing aside first his shirt and then pants with wet splacks. Then, he moved forward again, watching Starscream watch him as he fisted his own erection. When he was close enough for his tip to bump the Seeker's stomach, he stopped and leaned in to kiss him again.

His mate lifted one leg to wrap around his hip while he kissed back, whining with desperation. Megatron wound a fistful of soaking wet locks through his fingers and used it to tug the Seeker's head back before moving down to kiss and nip at his neck. He let the hair go as he moved lower and lower down the other mech's body, sucking shower water where it had pooled in clavicles, licking it from goose-fleshed nipples, and kissing it off the subtle swell of new life carving a place for itself inside of his mate.

"Beautiful," he whispered, sliding his hands around to squeeze supple handfuls of aft while a panting Starscream tried to push his head even lower.

The ex-warlord obliged, burying his nose in the thick, heady intoxication of his sparkling's mother. He opened his mouth to lick and suck at the Seeker's node and was met almost instantly with a deluge of lubricant as the slender thighs on either side of his face shook with overload. Remembering Starscream's begging for more the previous night, he simply tightened his grip and pushed harder against the quivering folds.

Above him, Starscream was breathing so hard he sounded like he was crying, and Megatron felt like he was going to overload himself without any stimulation when he pushed his fingers into the Seeker's valve and felt another climax jolt through his mate.

"You're gonna get addicted to pregnancy," the ex-warlord purred when he pulled away and Starscream tried to pull him back. All he got in return was a desperate whine. "Alright, but this is what you really want, isn't it?" he asked, taking his spike in hand once again as he got to his feet.

"I don't know what I want!" Starscream hissed, feverish, unfocused eyes staring up at him between tendrils of dark, dripping hair.

"Good thing I am not so conflicted, then," Megatron told him, grabbing a thigh in each hand as he lifted the Seeker up the wall.

Starscream yipped when his back stuck to the tiles, and there was a moment of awkwardly flailing limbs before he managed to arrange himself with his legs around Megatron's waist and arms around his neck.

“Hi,” the older mech grinned, rubbing himself between the Seeker's slick folds.

"I'm ready when you are," Starscream growled pointedly. 

Megatron tipped his hips until he found the Seeker's entrance, and then pushed forward. Starscream rippled around him, thighs quivering and tensing as Megatron pulled them farther apart to drive himself home. Desperate fingers wound themselves through his hair, holding tight when he started to buck his hips.

It was good: deep and luxurious with a handful of soft, warm aft in each hand and Starscream’s pretty little mouth gasping and begging in his ear. Megatron finished with a grunt and held deep to ensure the seeker got every last drop he had to give him.

“Good?” he rumbled against his mate’s neck when he felt himself starting to soften again. Starscream nodded, but continued to cling to him, so Megatron kept a hold of him and sank to his knees with the other mech in his lap.

"I don't… I don't want to talk about…" Starscream started to say and Megatron cut him off with an affectionate pinch to his aft.

"Then don't talk," he suggested. "We don't have to talk. You're less than four months along, Star. Whether we keep her or not, you have time to decide."

Starscream blinked at him, water droplets shining fetchingly on the ends of his thick lashes, before burrowing into his shoulder with a quick nod. Megatron kissed his temple and allowed himself a smile as he held him close.


End file.
